“New York is a shithole!” Rebel Wilson says as she stands in front of our very own University Center.
Wilson stars in “Isn’t it Romantic,” a parody on romantic comedies that was filmed in the Lower East Side. “Isn’t it Romantic” attempts to satirize romantic comedies, but the film doesn’t dare to venture away from some of the same tropes used in the many romantic comedies that precede it. Though I’m a rom-com fan myself, when I saw the trailer I was excited to finally watch a movie that called the genre out on its use of sexist, homophobic, and racist tropes. But while there are some funny aspects of the film, it ultimately isn’t as clever as it would like to be.
WARNING: Spoilers Ahead
The movie begins by introducing us to the people in Natalie’s life, all of whom are white (the film attempts to remedy this by introducing Priyanka Chopra’s character later on). There’s Donny, her drug-dealing neighbor, and then her best friends Josh and Whitney, who also happen to be her coworkers. From the moment that Josh is introduced to the plot, their interactions make it painfully clear that he and Natalie are going to end up together. Natalie isn’t even trapped in a romantic comedy yet, so Josh’s infatuation with her doesn’t really add up, especially since she constantly blows him off whenever he asks her out for drinks.
After Natalie is mugged, she wakes up in the hospital where everything is a little too nice and her doctor shamelessly flirts with her. Even if though he’s attractive, Natalie is understandably freaked out. Eventually, she is discharged and as she stands outside the the hospital, she notices that it smells like flowers instead of, as we know, dog shit and sewage (the hospital is actually the UC).
When Natalie arrives back at work, suddenly she and her co-worker Whitney are enemies, which pokes fun at romantic comedies’ penchant for making women compete against each other for no real reason. The directors decide to keep Josh exactly the same, which only emphasizes how oddly fake Josh seemed back in the real world. As characters go, Josh is two-dimensional, and doesn’t seem to have a life outside of Natalie. He’s also strangely animated at all times. Maybe this is simply Adam Devine’s acting style, as evidenced by his work in “Pitch Perfect” and “Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates,” but either way it takes away from the plot of the movie.
Natalie needs someone to vent all of her problems to so, naturally, Donny becomes the “gay best friend” who gives her advice–and makeovers. The film does a great job of demonstrating how unrealistic this scenario is. The film then upends this trope by giving Donny an actual backstory by the movie’s end. Another fun character is Blake, the predictable hot CEO who falls in love with Natalie. His character is the epitome of everything wrong with romantic comedies. He’s attractive, successful, and rich, but it only takes a few days before Blake proves himself to be controlling and possessive. This allows Natalie to realize she’s in love with Josh but unfortunately for her, Josh is about to get married to his new girlfriend. While the audience might assume that Natalie is going to stop Josh’s wedding, she actually decides that she loves herself and doesn’t need a man to complete her. This is all well and good, but when Natalie gets back to the real world, she still ends up with Josh, so her words feel a little empty.
To the film’s credit, Natalie does use her newfound self confidence to finally present her architectural designs at work. Thus she is no longer “the coffee bitch” and all the plot points are neatly tied together. Whitney points out that it kinds of seems like Natalie was in a romantic comedy all along, considering now she’s got the guy and the job of her dreams. This is clearly meant to be “meta,” but considering the movie fails to surpass the cliched structure of its predecessors, the line falls flat. The movie then ends with a hilarious and mocking musical number.
“Isn’t it Romantic” still has a long way to go in terms of plot consistency and representation, but it definitely has some funny moments, which is why I’m giving it ⅗ stars. If you’d like to see our neighborhood on the big screen and have a few laughs, then this movie might be what you’re looking for. Otherwise, you won’t be missing out on too much.